Production Car World Rally Championship driver, Jari-Matti Latvala is hoping to use his victory on the Rally NZ - and his win in Australia three weeks ago as a springboard for 2007.

Latvala was delighted with his result in Hamilton and not only did the Finn finish first in the Production class - having led pretty much throughout, until a one minute penalty for speeding in the service park dropped him to second on Saturday night, behind Mirco Baldacci, but he also finished eighth overall and took the final 'senior' WRC drivers' point, to add to the three he took in Perth, when he was sixth overall.

“I'm so happy! It was a fine rally with a great team who have worked so hard to get these results,” he reflected. “It was quite an easy rally as we had no problems [other than the speeding penalty at the end of Saturday] – the hardest thing was tyre choices. We were lucky when [Mirco] Baldacci had his problem, then I just had to concentrate and drive at my own pace.

“The PCWRC has been great year for us to learn things but maybe we're ready to take things a step further!”

Speaking in the PCWRC post-event press conference he conceded though that there was no way he would have gotten ahead of Baldacci on Sunday, if the Mitsubishi driver hadn't transmission troubles, which forced him out in SS14.

“It is a good feeling to be here. We had so many problems at the start of the year with technical problems - and I made mistakes, but we have been more clever at the end of the year. We had a good run in Australia and are glad to do the same here. Mirco was driving very fast and we had a good battle for two days over more than 200 kilometres, but then I got the time penalty on Saturday evening for speeding on Friday evening in the service area and after that I know that on Sunday we won't be able to catch Mirco,” he explained. “But I go as fast as I can and see if Mirco makes a mistake. But unfortunately Mirco has problems with his car and after that we got the lead and held on to it to the finish and we are happy.

“The stages here are very nice, some of the best in the world, with lots of camber; it's like dancing with the car. But sometimes it is hard in a Group N car when you don't have the power and you have to go uphill and are turning corner after corner and also it might be under steering. You need a good rhythm and to think about braking points and get the right gear to get the good speed out of the corner, because without the power the car can easily die and getting speed back is difficult.”

Latvala now heads to the Wales Rally GB, when he will switch to a WRC car and once again line up alongside Matthew Wilson in the second Stobart VK Ford Focus – his fourth outing of the year with what is effectively Ford's 'B' team.

“It is a great opportunity for us with a very fast car [on Rally GB] - I think it is the best car you can get at the moment,” he continued. “What we want is to get good speed and not make mistakes, and okay I would like to be in the top eight there, but at the moment it is difficult to know how fast the other cars are going because we have been competing with Group N cars and while we have won two rallies, it is difficult to know what our speed will be in a World Rally Car.

“Maybe we will do little test before the rally to get confidence, and we need to do our own speed and see how fast others are going, then we can realise if we go fast and try to make the results better. It will be interesting to see.”

Latvala for the record, finished the season fourth in the Production Car WRC, having scored 27 points.